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American Religion

Protestantism's Lost Soul

D. G. Hart’s The Lost Soul of American Protestantism vividly clarifies the differences between evangelical and Confessional Protestantism. In part the book is a manifesto for historians of American religion. Hart argues that historians of American Protestantism have operated with a simplistic binary contrast of evangelical/conservative v. liberal/progressive. At best,…

by Peter LeithartAugust 18, 2015
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Books

The Idiot and the Limits of Compassion

Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Idiot , like his other major works, is a complex evaluation of the human condition—a juxtaposition of the innate goodness and innate evil that resides within every human heart. There is much one can say about The Idiot . I am no specialist of Russian literature, or…

by Gerald HiestandAugust 13, 2015
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Homosexuality

If There is “Natural Law” How Can People Believe in Same-Sex Marriage?

At risk of violating some secret handshake agreement on some important nuance to “natural law,” I will sum up what I understand in my own words. As far as I can tell natural law is supposed to be an area of knowledge that all people should be able to agree…

by Mark HorneAugust 11, 2015
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Biblical Studies

Cosmic Language, 2

The first installment of this article may be found here . The Image of Man This brings us to a substitutionary atonement which we do understand, the fulfilment of the cruciform Tabernacle in the cross of Christ. Although Jesus’ execution was Physical and Social, it was primarily Personal . Beginning…

by Mike BullAugust 6, 2015
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Genesis

Every Noise Appalls

The first two essays in this series drew attention to the structure of the first part of Macbeth and to the way Shakespeare incorporates the Garden of Eden into his story. Macbeth , we saw, is a temptation story in which, compared to the Biblical story, the temptation itself is…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 4, 2015
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Revelation

The Warrior and the City: A Wedding Homily

Revelation 19:6-9 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For theLord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him,…

by Peter LeithartAugust 3, 2015

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Being and Advent

Stanislas Breton ( A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul , 56-7) observes that Plato dealt with mythology not be eliminating the gods but by taking their mythical histories as metaphor of the real, “by reading the elevating density of the intelligible in the heaviness of the sensible.” Platonic dualism thus…

November 21, 2014

Predestination, Imperatives, and the Meaning of Being

Stanislas Breton ( A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul , 59) observes that for Paul “Time [is] the expression or explication . . . of the eternal.” He elaborates by linking predestination with the imperative of creation to sketch out a linguistic/constructivist ontology: “Word and seed correspond to each other…

November 21, 2014

No More Jew or Greek

“Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom,” says Paul. Most interpretations focus on the objects: Jews are defined by signs, Greeks by wisdom. Stanislas Breton ( A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul , 143-4) is more interested in the verbs: “We have here a simple typology, limited to an…

November 21, 2014

Exodus to Sabbath

The oath of the strong angel in Revelation 10 knits together two passages. The angel’s oath stance - hand raised - alludes back to Ezekiel 20, where Yahweh reminds Israel of the day He chose them and lifted His hand (Heb. ‘esse ’ yadi ), making Himself known to them…

November 21, 2014

It Is Finished

John records Jesus’ ringing “It is finished” in his crucifixion narrative. But when he gets to Revelation, John records another declaration that things are “finished.” The angel who gives John the book to eat swears that “the mystery of God is finished” (Revelation 10:7). In context, the mystery of God…

November 20, 2014

Unnatural Naturalism

In a NYRB review of an exhibition of Cubism at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Julian Bell links the early cubist experiments of Georges Braque to the impressionism of Cezanna: “In his artistic researches, Cézanne had been intent to paw at the boundary between his personal visual sensations and the…

November 20, 2014

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